Category Archives: Naturally Gluten-Free Desserts

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[Update: I’m now allergic to apples and dairy, which makes this a no go for me. But it’s good. You should try it!]

Desserts have got to be one of the trickiest things, at least for me, to find yummy, naturally gluten-free recipes of. It doesn’t help that I’m also sugar-free and have a whole litany of food allergies. Makes desserts, well, challenging to find.

When I was a kid my grandma made the best apple dumplings every year during the holidays, and I’ve been wanting something similar that’d be gluten-free, sugar-free, and hopefully less labor intensive. A pretty high order.

Pinterest provided a good starting point though when I stumbled across an apple recipe. I altered it a bit–the apples are baked, mine’s sugar-free, along with a couple other alterations. So Mr. Munger, the fiancé, and I tried it out when he was in the area this last weekend. And it was a huge hit, even with the wheat-eaters. Its picture really doesn’t do it justice.

Ingredients:

6 large apples (personally, I like red apples)

1 and 1/2 tablespoon Splenda® (or sugar)

1 and 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Vanilla ice cream (make sure it’s gluten-free!)

Caramel topping (be sure that this one’s gluten-free too, and if you want it to be sugar-free buy the kind sweetened with Spenda®)

Directions:

Cut the tops of apples the way you would a pumpkin (enough so that the hole is big enough to allow you to hollow out the insides but still leaving the majority of the apple intact).

Slowly, carefully hollow out each apple using a metal tablespoon or melon baller. Unlike a pumpkin, the skin on the apples is fragile so don’t go too quickly or you might end up with a hole. (Don’t worry if it looks uneven on the inside because no one will see it anyway.)

Mix the Spenda®/sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg together in a small bowl. And then rub mixture on the inside of all of the apples so that they all have a coating.

Set the oven for 350 degrees F. And bake for 25 to 30 minutes. (The trick is to have your apples soft enough to easily eat while also being stable enough to hold together.)

Once baked, immediately fill with the vanilla ice cream of your choosing (vanilla bean or French vanilla are my favorites) and top with warm caramel.

[Update: Due to my dairy allergy, this isn’t something I can eat anymore. But give it a try! It’s tasty]

Mr. M’s just celebrated his 28th rotation around the sun. Since our very first date to Seattle almost two years ago he’s been wanting to tour Seattle in the most culturally sophisticated way possible—The Duck. When Mr. M first pointed out the super touristy, tacky duck-shaped boats and announced that he wanted to ride one I just laughed.

In honor of his birthday though I’m going to treat him to a tour via The Duck once spring quarter is over and he’s back for a week over break. And I also made him mini blueberry cheesecakes to celebrate (note the lovely lit candles below). And he seemed to really enjoy them.

I highly modified Suzanne Somers’ New York Cheesecake recipe from her book Somersize Desserts. While it isn’t specifically gluten-free, a lot of the recipes in the book tend to be naturally gluten-free.

Yields: About 18 cupcakes.

Ingredients for Cupcakes :

3 (8-ounce) packages of cream cheese (room temperature)

1 and 1/4 cups Splenda/sucralose

3 large eggs (at room temperature)

1 cup sour cream

1 and 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries (optional)

1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

Ingredients for Topping:

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup Splenda/sucralose

Directions:

Place cupcake liners in muffin tins and set aside.

Beat cream cheese and Spenda together in a large bowl (it will turn out better if you wait until the cream cheese is at room temperature).

[Update: I can no longer eat dairy, found out that I’m allergic. But because this recipe was one of my all-time favorite desserts, I’ve left it on the blog]

Valentine’s Day may be over, but that’s no reason to put the chocolate away. Bring on the mousse!

You can buy gluten-free, sugar-free mousse mixes in the store, but they’re kind of pricy and the ingredient list contains way too many unidentifiable things. This is cheaper not only cheaper, but it also only has four ingredients. And it’s super simple, quick, and quite yummy.

It’s also a great desert to serve picky wheat-eaters (you know, the ones who think anything that says it’s “certified gluten-free” will taste like dirt) because they’ll never guess it’s gluten-free!

Yields: About four to six servings (it just really depends completely on how much you’re in the mood for chocolate).

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy cream

2 tablespoons vanilla

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup Splenda (or any generic form of sucralose)

Directions:

Use an electric mixer to mix cream until it just starts to get fluffy.

Add vanilla, cocoa powered, and Splenda.

Mix until light and fluffy (be careful to not over mix the cream because it won’t be as light and fluffy then).

Divide into smaller containers (or you could always eat it right out of the bowl), and serve. You can also let it sit in the refrigerator if you want it to be colder. It tastes quite nice chilled, but I can never wait that long.